January 8, 2024

🌻 The Week in Botany January 8, 2024

It’s a slow start this year, though we should have more things out next week. Something that did happen over the holiday is I set up an account for Botany One on Bluesky. It’s the social media network I’m least enthused about, as the invite system means the better connected you are, the more likely you’re able to get in. On the other hand it also seems to be the one with the fewest lunatics and the easiest place to find interesting posts.

Things should be busier this week, with the Careers section returning to the newsletter next week. Until then, take care.

Alun (webmaster@botany.one)

News & Views

Birmingham Botanical Gardens to list thousands of plants in collection
For the first time in a decade, Birmingham's Botanical Gardens are making a list of the thousands of plants in the collection. It is vital work, as any one of the trees, flowers or shrubs has the potential to be used to find treatments for diseases.

Letters to the Editor: Plant a native garden to see real California wildlife in your own yard.
To the editor: From my experience in designing and planting two gardens with California native plants, I can attest to the positive impact a native plant garden has on the local pollinators as well as the soil. (“Here’s what’s wrong with your perfectly drought-tolerant Southern California landscaping,” Opinion, Dec. 24)

Unbelievable before-and-after images show impact of planting trees: ‘These trees are making unimaginable differences’
Ecosia, a search engine that plants trees powered by user searches, recently shared a map illustrating its impact in Nicaragua — and it was pretty impressive.

‘The trees are trying to tell us things’: the ecologist championing Britain’s ancient forests
Ted Green, a conservation adviser to the crown estate at Windsor, has a provocative take on our ‘living heritage’.

Canada’s Logging Industry Devours Forests Crucial to Fighting Climate Change
A study finds that logging has inflicted severe damage to the vast boreal forests in Ontario and Quebec, two of the country’s main commercial logging regions.

10 Unusual and Rare Flowers You Won't Find in Most Gardens
We admire rare flowers for the beauty and alluring scents they bring to our personal and public landscapes. But to the plant, flowers are a deadly serious business; the plant's survival depends on the appeal of its flower to a distinctly non-human client list.

Fossil evidence of photosynthesis gets a billion years older
Remains of cells from two sites show structures similar to those in present cells.

New plant species discovered in Maharashtra's Pench Tiger Reserve: Forest official
Out of the various species reported during the survey, 294 are herbs, 157 natural trees, 131 climbers, 131 grasses, 52 shrubs and the remaining are avenue trees.

Flowers Are Evolving to Have Less Sex
As the number of bees and other pollinators falls, field pansies are adapting by fertilizing their own seeds, a new study found.

Cats make Cambridge garden centre their second home
A garden centre and its comfortable patio furniture have become a second home for two cats.

Surge in extreme forest fires fuels global emissions
Climate change and human activities have led to more frequent and intense forest blazes over the past two decades.

Scientific Papers

A suberized exodermis is required for tomato drought tolerance (OA)
Cantó-Pastor et al. demonstrate that the suberin regulatory network has the same parts driving suberin production in the tomato exodermis and the Arabidopsis endodermis. Despite this co-option of network components, the network has undergone rewiring to drive distinct spatial expression and with distinct contributions of specific genes.

Evidence and attribution of the enhanced land carbon sink ($)
Climate change has been partially mitigated by an increasing net land carbon sink in the terrestrial biosphere; understanding the processes that drive this sink is thus essential for protecting, managing and projecting this important ecosystem service. In this Review, Reuhr et al. examine evidence for an enhanced land carbon sink and attribute the observed response to drivers and processes.
ReadCube: https://rdcu.be/dvmSb

Long noncoding RNA‐mediated epigenetic regulation of auxin‐related genes controls shade avoidance syndrome in Arabidopsis ($)
The long noncoding RNA (lncRNA) AUXIN‐REGULATED PROMOTER LOOP (APOLO) recognizes a subset of target loci across the Arabidopsis thaliana genome by forming RNA–DNA hybrids (R‐loops) and modulating local three‐dimensional chromatin conformation. Mammarella et al. show that APOLO regulates shade avoidance syndrome by dynamically modulating expression of key factors.

Uncovering root compaction response mechanisms: new insights and opportunities (OA)
Compaction disrupts soil structure, reducing root growth, nutrient and water uptake, gas exchange, and microbial growth. Root growth inhibition by soil compaction was originally thought to reflect the impact of mechanical impedance and reduced water availability. However, using a novel gas diffusion-based mechanism employing the hormone ethylene, recent research has revealed that plant roots sense soil compaction.

Land management shapes drought responses of dominant soil microbial taxa across grasslands (OA)
Lavalle et al. imposed an in situ experimental drought across 30 diverse UK grassland sites with contrasting management intensities and found that: (1) the majority of dominant bacterial (85%) and fungal (89%) taxa exhibit resistant or opportunistic drought strategies, possibly contributing to their ubiquity and dominance across sites; and (2) intensive grassland management decreases the proportion of drought-sensitive and non-resilient dominant bacteria—likely via alleviation of nutrient limitation and pH-related stress under fertilisation and liming—but has the opposite impact on dominant fungi.

Salicylic Acid in Plant Immunity and Beyond (OA)
As the most widely used herbal medicine in human history and a major defense hormone in plants against a broad spectrum of pathogens and abiotic stresses, salicylic acid (SA) has attracted major research interest. With applications of modern technologies over the past 30 years, studies of the effects of SA on plant growth, development, and defense have revealed many new research frontiers, and continue to deliver surprises.Spoel & Dong provide an update on recent advances in our understanding of SA metabolism, perception, and signal transduction mechanisms in plant immunity.

A conserved graft formation process in Norway spruce and Arabidopsis identifies the PAT gene family as central regulators of wound healing (OA)
The widespread use of plant grafting enables eudicots and gymnosperms to join with closely related species and grow as one. Gymnosperms have dominated forests for over 200 million years, and despite their economic and ecological relevance, we know little about how they graft. Feng et al. developed a micrografting method in conifers using young tissues that allowed efficient grafting with closely related species and between distantly related genera.

A pilot oral history of plant synthetic biology (OA)
Joshi et al. set out to capture the essence of plant SynBio's origins and early development through interviews with 8 of the field's founders, representing 5 countries and 3 continents. They then distilled these founders’ personal recollections and reflections into this review, centering the narrative on timelines for pivotal events, articles, funding programs, and quoting from interviews.

Diversified molecular adaptations of inorganic nitrogen assimilation and signaling machineries in plants ($)
Zhang et al. highlight innovations in inorganic nitrogen assimilation and signaling machineries, ranging from molecular modifications of proteins to genomic rearrangements, which shaped developmental and metabolic adaptations of plants to changeable nutrient availability in environments.

The end game(s) of photosynthetic carbon metabolism (OA)
The year 2024 marks 70 years since the general outline of the carbon pathway in photosynthesis was published. Although several alternative pathways are now known, it is remarkable how many organisms use the reaction sequence described 70 yrs ago, which is now known as the Calvin–Benson cycle or variants such as the Calvin–Benson–Bassham cycle or Benson–Calvin cycle. However, once the carbon has entered the Calvin–Benson cycle and is converted to a 3-carbon sugar, it has many potential fates. This review will examine the last stages of photosynthetic metabolism in leaves.